


Mycroft Makes a Match

by Tammany



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Fluff, Gen, Matchmaking, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is for Molly. I wanted someone for her less hurtful than Sherlock, and definitely less boring and dull than Tom. Someone who might appeal to her in spite of not appearing to be a sociopath.</p><p>So--who better to make a match for her than Mycroft? I mean, you just KNOW the man's a yenta at heart, don't you? </p><p>In this story I am assuming that there's a merger between the Bond universe and the Sherlock universe, and essentially Mycroft is M, and he commands agents and operatives from both 'verses. And, yes. James B. does make an appearance, though only as background.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mycroft Makes a Match

“Do I have to go, John? Can’t they just do the people thing without me?”

Sherlock was whining, but, then, Molly thought, when was he not whining?

“Which paper is inflicting this atrocity on an unsuspecting public, again?’ he went on. He was slumped into a corner of the big limo provided by his brother Mycroft.

“The Daily Express, dear,” Mary said, giggling. “They think you’ll appeal to their women readers.”

“You’re dramatic, mate,” John added, with a grin. “What’s the nickname that one calls you? Oh, yeah. ‘The Diva Detective.’”

“Yes, and they always manage to get the most sultry photos of him, don’t they?’

Molly sighed, from her own perch in the diagonally opposite corner of the limo, facing backward and feeling faintly. She’d yearned over more than one of the Daily Express’ dishier pictures of Sherlock. Their photographer had a knack for making him look like pouting sex in motion: the Mick Jagger of his profession. “Yeah,” she said under her breath.

Mary leaned over, trying to catch Molly’s words. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Molly said, sinking deeper into her corner. “Never mind me.”

Sherlock gave her a sharp look, and she cringed, waiting for him to announce her ongoing sexual attraction to the others. Instead he gave her an understanding half-smile, threw her his trademark wink, and said loudly, “But why do they have to throw a party? It’s ridiculous. ‘A British Classic?’ It makes me sound like an Oldie on a Karaoke play list.”

She smiled in gratitude. The truth was she would always find him stunningly attractive, she thought—but year by year she’d understood better and better that, like his addictions, it was a self-destructive hunger. She’d learned to get beyond the old school-girl crush and see the spoiled, lonely, messed up little boy hiding behind his mind and his cool—and she’d also come to feel an almost sisterly fondness that had nothing to do with desire or infatuation. Little Boy Lost, he was, and she’d concluded long since that it would take a tougher woman than she was to survive his high-maintenance, often harsh love. God alone knew how John and Mary dealt with him—and it was a miracle that Mycroft hadn’t given up on him years since.

The limo pulled up at the Landmark, and the party tumbled out.

Sherlock and John and Mary looked good, Molly thought. Sherlock was Sherlock, of course, but Mary had apparently convinced him that a major party being thrown in his honor warranted at least a little extra effort. She had no idea who’d taken him shopping, but whoever it was had found the right compromises for Sherlock. She frowned—fashion wasn’t her thing, but she thought his suit was a bit sharper and more tailored, a bit more overtly dashing and “cool.” His shirt, too, was just a bit more upscale—crisp, flash, the white so bright it jumped, the collar flying wide, showing his long throat and the first dented curve of his clavicles. It was slightly larger than he often wore, too—trim, close fitting, but not to the point of pulling the buttons so hard that a wardrobe failure seemed immanent. The suit was a dark, dark charcoal grey, almost black, and the boutonniere buttonhole of his lapel was edged in crimson, like the buttonholes of his beloved Belstaff. She couldn’t put her finger on why it all came together to create so much more posh a finished look, but it did.

Mary was wearing a simple summer frock, light, fluid, hemmed at the mid-calf, of a soft lavender-rose shade. It hung on her slight frame, sleek and supple and easily moved in, with a slashed side seam that gave her legs mobility. John was wearing an unexpectedly becoming suit in dark, inky navy blue, with a matching waistcoat and an entirely surprising striped band-necked shirt open at the throat—somehow simultaneously dapper and unobtrusive, as though the man had found a way to do stealth posh on the sly.

All three of them looked amazing. Molly looked down at her own dress, as she climbed out of the limo, and sighed. She already knew she’d managed once more to choose the wrong frock. She’d thought about it—a media party, thrown in honor of a media celebrity. That’s what Sherlock was, after all. So she’d gone online and tried to work out what people wore to media parties for celebrities, and then tried to figure out how to modify that to fit who she really was. After all, she couldn’t wear some of what the Kardashians or Lady Gaga wore—people would laugh.

She’d gone shopping, then, looking for something pretty and dressy and maybe, please, sexy, and colorful, and then she’d gone looking for accessories, and she already knew just looking around that she’d gone too far again. She was too purple, too sexy, and the long purple silk tassels she’d pinned in her hair took it right over the top, as did purple shoes and matching clutch with the leather roses.

She sighed. She never could get it to work out. You were supposed to match, and accessorize, and dress “for the job you want, not the job you have.” But when she did, she ended up too matched, too accessorized, and the only job she’d get wearing what she wore was as a hostess in a second-rate restaurant in the suburbs.

Well. Too late to change now. She pokered up, stood tall, and marched into the hotel behind her far more elegant associates. As soon as she got into the event hall, though, she found the open bar, bought a double Bloody Mary, and hid in a dark corner, watching the party unfold around her.

At least, she thought, purple was good for hiding in the shadows….

There was a good band, and between sets there was a good mix tape. The bartender was generous in his measurements. The corner table wasn’t attracting too much attention. Sherlock danced with that girl from John and Mary’s wedding—Janine? The pretty Irish one who laughed, and who made Sherlock laugh. Part of her was so happy for Sherlock: he needed someone tough and funny and fierce like that. But, oh, she wished what he’d needed was someone quiet and geeky and shy and clumsy, who couldn’t tell a joke to save her life.

“Mind if we join you?”

She looked up, and found Greg Lestrade hovering, drink in hand. She sighed—another handsome one taken: Mycroft Holmes was trailing behind the Inspector with the expression of a man who’s found his anchor and who intends to cling to him forever. Still, they were nice men. She smiled and nodded.

“Of course. I mean—I don’t mind. Please, yeah, sit.”

Greg slipped into a seat, and glanced sideways with a smile as Mycroft, too, eased into place. “Nice party, eh?”

“Great,” she agreed. “They didn’t make Sherlock talk too much, and John stepped on his foot before he said anything really embarrassing.”

“John’s gotten good at that over the years,” Greg chuckled. “He’s got a great future as a manager for actors and rock stars.”

“I can think of a number of politicians who need a John Watson out on the hustings with them,” Mycroft said, and frowned at his drink. “Greg, what is this? It appears to have—things—in it.”

The twinkle in Greg’s eyes was pure laughing trouble. “It’s an African, Mycroft. Dark rum, raspberries, melon, pineapple, and orange juice.”

The bartender, Molly noticed, had garnished the lip of the drink with further fruit—a slice of orange, a fat strawberry, a slice of star fruit, a spiral of lime peel. He’d topped it with a frighteningly large paper umbrella.

“You are an evil man,” Mycroft said, looking at the drink with increasing dread.

“Try it. It’s good,” Lestrade assured him. “And think of the vitamins.”

“I notice you didn’t get one.”

“I get my vitamins from healthy sunshine and bar snacks. Pickled onions, for example…”

The look the two exchanged made Molly sigh again.

“So—how’s it going for you, Moll,” Lestrade asked, turning from his partner.

“Oh, good.”

“Yeah? Getting out much?”

“Well. It’s not like I meet many people in a morgue. At least—not live ones.” She gave an uneasy giggle. “I’m afraid the last cute guy I met had died of an aneurism.”

“Tends to put a crimp in a relationship,” Greg said, straight faced.

“Low maintenance, though,” Mycroft pointed out. “The dead make so few demands.”

She looked at him, frowning, not sure if he was serious, joking—or mocking her. “Actually, they’re a lot of work. And expensive. You wouldn’t believe what a morgue fridge costs. Not to mention the electric bill.”

Greg snorted. Mycroft cocked his head and raised his eyebrows in a slightly taken-aback “well, all right, that’s a new outlook” expression.

Greg ignored him, turning to Molly again. “What else? Hobbies? Just treat yourself to a movie once in a while?”

Molly shrugged. “Strictly Come Dancing. Glee.”

Even she could hear the emptiness. She set her chin. “I’m a quiet person. I lead a quiet life. That’s not a problem. And there’s always a bit of excitement. Just last month Sherlock had to go undercover, and he worked out of my apartment for a week.”

“I daresay he didn’t help with the laundry or change the sheets,” Mycroft muttered.

“He’s usually pretty focused when he’s got a case,” Molly said. “He has other things on his mind. I don’t mind. I was already planning on doing the laundry that weekend.”

Mycroft grumbled softly, like Toby-cat growling when she trimmed his claws, but Greg just nodded, and then, as though it was as natural as breathing, said, “Want to dance? I’ve been sitting too long. Need to move.”

Molly glanced at Mycroft—who looked back with a surprisingly mischievous twinkle. “Do dance with him,” he said. “For a variety of reasons we maintain a low profile—certainly no dancing together at an event thrown by a newspaper. Let him take you out on the floor.”

She nodded, then. It would be good to dance…

Greg was good. Surprisingly, disturbingly good. “They should put you on Strictly Come Dancing,” she said during a fast rock number, all pink and flushed and breathing hard to keep up with him.

“Come on—making it up as I go,” Greg said, with a grin. “But it’s not like I wasn’t young, once. I haven’t forgotten it all, yet.”

He hadn’t. She let him draw her into a more formal fox trot after the freeform rock. Then she let him buy her a new Bloody Mary and himself a pint before taking her back to the corner table. He turned to Mycroft. “Got to go to the WC,” he said. “Keep Molly busy?”

Mycroft looked at him owlishly. “That bartender overloaded that greengrocer’s display you got me,” he said, “I’m a bit tipsy to dance.”

“Then talk,” Greg said. “You’re good at that.”

Mycroft nodded, and patted Molly’s hand, as though he was her father or her uncle or a big brother or something similar. “That I can.” He turned to Molly, and said, cheerfully, “Now that you’ve had the good sense to go off my brother, what are you looking for, my dear?”

“Mycroft!” Greg squawked, “God! You’re rubbish at this. Do I need to get John to look after you, too?”

“Go to the WC,” Mycroft said, without looking up. He smiled into Molly’s eyes. “Miss Hooper is a sensible woman, and took no offense, did you, my dear?”

She couldn’t help giggling at his overblown prim act, and the smirk that was softened by the sparkle. “Yeah,” she said, knowing that she’d have been near tears if he’d said it differently, or looked at her with less laughing kindness. “I’m fine, Greg. Go get rid of the last pint before you burst.”

Greg snorted, but left quick enough Molly was fairly sure his departure really was necessary. She looked back at Mycroft. “He’s a nice man. You’re lucky.”

“Lucky beyond words,” he said, briefly, then quickly changed the topic. “So…really. Having worked out that pining for Sherlock is a dunce’s game, what do you really want?”

She spared one yearning glance at Sherlock. “If he weren’t so Sherlock—he’s still wonderful.”

“He’s rude, often unwittingly cruel, occasionally quite intentionally cruel. He’s heavy-handed, and insensitive. The only way he’ll ever be really empathic is if his partner rams her feelings down his throat and follows it with a chaser of communication between the eyes.”

“He’s so smart, though…” she whispered. “He could learn.”

“He could learn—but he’d never be a natural.”

“I understand. I’m not good at feelings, either. Not really. I get so much wrong. I’m bad at—people. And at people-things.” She glanced down at her dress again—her too purple dress and shoes and the purple clutch on the table. “I can forgive him for being bad, too.”

“What you mean is that you hope that, as he’s horrible, he’d forgive you. But the two of you are quite different, you know.” He leaned back and measured her with cool, assessing eyes. His voice shifted, picking up overtones of the manners and style she associated with Sherlock when he deduced things. “You’re very good at seeing the possible emotional and social consequences of actions—too good. You see too many possible reactions and feelings, imagine too many consequences. Sherlock barely considers them. You do know he honestly had no idea his faked death and his return would hurt John profoundly?”

“He’s…” she flinched. “He’s not a monster.”

“I didn’t say he was. I said he has no real sense of human nature, in that sense. He has to logic it out. You don’t—your problem is that you see too much, too well, but don’t know how to filter it or evaluate it. It overwhelms you.”

She blushed. “Everyone else manages.”

“You don’t conform well.” He shrugged. “It’s a gift. John’s quite good at it: he blends, like a chameleon, even when he’s not himself aware what he’s blending with. Sherlock’s actually quite good at it, too, when he’s on a case or undercover. When he does it merely as a game. It’s when he tries to coordinate it with an internal reality that’s at right angles to the rest of the world that he falls apart. You, however, lack the knack.” He noted her shrinking into herself, and said, firmly. “No, do stop that. Social invisibility is hardly a virtue.”

She shrugged, and decided not to point out that camouflage had its uses.

He snorted, apparently reading her mind in spite of her silence. “Stop. This instant. Instead look around this room and tell me who appeals to you.”

She blushed, but decided to cooperate. It was better than analyzing her shortcomings. She jerked her chin toward a man on the dance floor, performing a tango or a samba or something sexy like that with a woman clothed in crimson scandal—nudity tricked out as fancy dress. She looked like the disposable female assets in a spy movie: the girl who screws well and dies even better. The man suited her—he was the appropriate accessory for her outfit. He was neatly built: lean and wiry, with the kind of muscular build that suggested constant action: a Marine in special ops, a cowboy fresh from the range, a longshoreman able to heave cargo around without thought. He wasn’t massive, but everything about him announced that if you stripped away the elegant black suit, the neon-blue tie and the shining white shirt you’d find arms and torso as defined and cut as any athlete’s. He moved like a lion—cocky, predatory, arrogant, and very male.

“He’s…impressive,” Molly managed to say.

Mycroft glanced, and snorted. “Nice package, but the software that goes with it? Let’s just say Sherlock’s actually a marginally better choice. James is selfish, and so help me his liaisons die so fast that if insurance companies ever get wind of it women will be denied coverage on the sole ground that they talked to him for more than ten minutes. Though I’m told he’s good in the sheets, if you’ve just been diagnosed with a painful terminal disease anyway. You’d die happy, with far less fuss than you would otherwise.” He shot her a challenging glance. “I can introduce you, if you can provide me with a note from your doctor establishing your impending demise.”

She giggled. “No. I’m fine. Why are the pretty ones always crazy?”

“I don’t know—I think perhaps the power goes to their heads. And—some of them are spared. Think of Gregory…he’s just lovely, but decent through and through.”

“He is, isn’t he?” She said, struck by the observation. “Still…”

“What else appeals?” he asked.

She considered. “John’s cute, in a sort of mastiff-y way.”

Mycroft wrinkled his nose. “Not my type. What about that one?” He pointed to a powerful bull of a man, easily as tall as he himself and probably taller, with a chest that needed its own address and shoulders that almost certainly infringed on foreign air space.

She made a face. “Too Bluto. And you could crack nuts on that jaw.” She thought about it. “He doesn’t look all that smart, either.”

“He’s not,” Mycroft said. “Bodyguard, but not one of the clever ones. Came with the lead singer with the band. She’s got fantasies of being a target because of her shocking life-style.”

“Is she a target?”

“She’s not even got a properly shocking life-style. Thinks promiscuity and drinking are shocking and imaginative.” He rolled his eyes. “Living a tired, weary cliché and shocking only the naïve and the unimaginative. Fortunately for her, Mr. Muscles is both, and he finds her seductively dissolute.”

“Shagging her?”

“Not yet.” His eyes narrowed, and he considered. “Five pounds he doesn’t work up the nerve for another week.”

“How would you know?”

He shot her a wicked glance. “Now, Miss Hooper, if you’d asked me that before Sherlock’s little vacation from life as we know it, I’d have bowed my head and pretended I had no way of confirming. However, you know better, now. We’ve worked together as colleagues, however briefly. You know perfectly well I could find out if it mattered enough to me.”

“Yes, but I also know you wouldn’t really spy on them just to win a five-pound bet.”

He sniggered. “Touche.  All right, we’ve established you favor brains over brawn. Is that what you saw in Sherlock?”

She thought about it. “Some. Mostly.” She looked at him, sadly. “He’s beautiful, though, you know. The eyes, and the cheekbones, and the curls and the cool. Those miles of leg. And so obnoxiously romantic. It’s just not fair. They ought to make him register himself as a deadly weapon. Double-O sex appeal.”

He sputtered hard—if he’d still had a drink he’d have sprayed. It took him a moment to collect himself, and when he did the look he gave her was positively reproachful. “That was unkind, Miss Hooper.”

She shrugged, grinned, and stuck out her tongue. “True, though. Sexy, smart, dangerous, and that kind of sad, crazy, lonely thing that begs for fantasies about making him happy.”

“Humph. Sentimental twaddle. Especially where Sherlock is concerned. He’s most happy when he’s least allowed to mope and swan around like a Victorian poet.” He made a face. “What he needs is a no-nonsense dominatrix, but the last time he found one she turned out to be a lesbian and a criminal genius. Even then I think they were tempted, in a sort of “dating Catwoman” sort of way.”

She laughed, and stared at him. “You know about dating Catwoman?”

He shrugged and his fair redhead’s complexion turned pink. “Data is data. And I’ve got subordinates who are more easily managed if I speak their language.” He paused, and glanced at her. “And how do you known the term?”

She chuckled. “Fangirl.” Her eyes shone. “Used to want to be one of Doctor Who’s companions.”

“Who doesn’t?” Mycroft said, with a smile that seemed entirely sincere.

They beamed at each other.

“Well, you two look like you’re getting along like a house afire,” Greg said, approaching with three drinks rather precariously gripped. He set them down, and pushed one, in a wine glasstoward Mycroft. “Making up for the fruit salad—port. Cockburn…and, no, I don’t know if it’s a good year, but it’s at least one of the kinds you like.” He sat, then, pulling up his own drink—a cola-and-something, and pushing another Bloody Mary toward Molly. “What have you been up to?”

“Ogling the men,” Molly said, cheerfully. “Mycroft wants to know what I like.”

“And?” he asked, grinning.

“Smart, sexy, brooding. Obviously inclined toward dark, romantic types. Just beginning to grow a sense of self-preservation and self-worth—just barely enough to steer her away from known dangers.” Mycroft made a small, pucker-mouthed expression. “A taste for risk that’s worrisome, if understandable. Probably needs someone not too boring.”

“Boring meaning…”

“Meaning not the human equivalent of meat-three-veg.” He shot her a considering glance. “Maybe hot Thai take-out. A bit of fire, but not likely to land her in the A&E with food poisoning.” He brooded, then.

“Well at least I know what to shop for come Christmas,” Greg said. “Sounds like we’re looking at a bespoke boyfriend, though: mass produced isn’t going to do.”

“Nnnnnno,” Mycroft said, eyes growing distant. He sipped his port, pondering. “No, probably not.”

Greg looked at Molly. “So what’s on the display floor that you like?”

She shrugged, and smiled shyly. “Well. Sherlock, of course—just because I know better doesn’t mean I don’t still like what I see. John’s cute.” She nodded toward the dangerous James, who was now at the bar with the crimson-scandal. Somehow the two were playing out a porn movie without moving a muscle—it was all in the eyes and the body language. “He’s hot, but Mycroft says he’s a bad pick.”

Greg looked, did a double take, choked back a yip of laughter, and muttered, “God, yeah. The only women I’d introduce him to are enemies—and I might even spare them. Some things are just cruel.”

“So you’d only introuduce him to other men?”

Mycroft came out of his trance long enough to murmur, “I’d think twice about men, too, if rumors are correct. Granted, women seem to be the more endangered gender…”

“Huh, hadn’t heard that,” Lestrade said, looking across the room speculatively.

“Gregory…” Mycroft’s tone was grim.

“Shhh, no. Not for me.” His eyes narrowed, and he said, “You should have introduced him to Moriarty, love. Think of the trouble we could have been spared if you’d just exposed Jim to James….”

Mycroft snorted, and gave a crooked grin. “It would have been an efficient solution, wouldn’t it? At least one would come out dead, and if I got really lucky they’d both perish in a blaze of testosterone and cray-cray. Unfortunately I hadn’t yet heard that James played both sides of the field.” He frowned, then. “Greg, I need to make a call. Could you be so kind as to take Miss Hooper out on the floor again? Just for a few dances?”

“Glad to,” Greg said, amiable as always.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Mycroft said, hand already reaching into his pocket for his mobile. By the time Molly and Greg reached the dance floor she could see he was already involved, totally focused on his call.

“He’s a busy man, isn’t he?” she said, as he drew her in for a close dance. “Must be hard for you.”

“Got its downside, yeah.  But I’m proud of him, too. He’s…” Greg’s eyes went soft, the deep chocolate brown glowing with affection. “He’s amazing.”

“You sound like John going on about Sherlock,” she said with a smile.

“Yeah. But—it’s just—Mike’s great, but he’s also good. The hard kind, you know?” He looked at her. “Maybe you don’t. I don’t know. I just know my work shows me too many ways there aren’t any great answers, maybe not even any good answers—and the good people are the ones who try to pick the best of what’s left. That’s Mycroft.”

He meant it. She thought of the tall, fierce man who’d stepped in after Sherlock’s jump from St. Bart’s, sweeping all the complications up and blowing them away like a one-man bureaucratic hurricane. Problem after problem had fallen before his terse commands. Sherlock had whined and carped and picked at his orders, but in the end even Sherlock had fallen into line, cooperating with his older brother’s orders.

“You do know about…the Fall?”

His eyes went shuttered. He gave a tiny nod. “Mmm.”

“I have this one memory. He’d called for transport to take Sherlock away from the hospital, where I’d been hiding him for—God. It must have ended up being three days before we could safely smuggle him out. We slipped him out the back delivery entrance in a laundry cart. I remember Mr. Holmes standing on the cargo platform, watching the lorry drive away into the night, just leaning on that umbrella. He looked…tired.”

He sighed. “I remember that night.” She felt his fingers tighten at her waist and in her palm; felt his pulse pick up. He pulled her close and she leaned against him, feeling the tension. “It was a bad night,” he said, softly.

They turned and turned, as the music played on.

They danced for at least half an hour—fast and slow alike. By the time they came back Mycroft had finished his call, and had gone to the bar and brought back more drinks.

“Who’s joining us,” Greg asked, when he noticed the extra pint of beer.

“A subordinate of mine,” Mycroft said. “I wanted to run something past him.” He smiled a merry little smile. “He’s rather a favorite of mine. Tech whiz. Geek.” He grinned at Molly. “He’s the one for whom I learned to speak fluent fanboy, my dear. A character, though no less puissant than any of my best people.”

He said it in a voice that suggested she pay attention. She thought about it. “Are you saying he kicks butt, sir?” she said, amused.

“More often metaphorically than in direct combat. But he’s far from inept in direct confrontations, when it comes down to it.” His expression said he was pleased with her. “He’s an odd duck—but interesting. Bright. Very bright.” He smirked. “He even manages to keep up with me, most of the time.”

Which would have sounded insufferably vain if Molly hadn’t observed just how bright Mycroft Holmes really was—and if she hadn’t had plenty of exposure to Sherlock to give her some sense of scale. Anyone who could keep up with Mycroft for even short stretches was a genius by ordinary standards.

It was getting late when Mycroft’s man finally did show up, though. A small group had slowly grown at Molly’s table as the guests began to sort themselves toward the end of the evening. John and Mary and Sherlock and Janine had come over. That was good and bad: Molly liked the broader group, but Sherlock and Mycroft sniped endlessly at each other, forever poised between actual battle and mere play. Which it was switched with a speed Molly couldn’t keep up with—and the interactions sometimes were so pointed she could only flinch.

“They’re in control,” Mary murmured, beside her. “No danger.”

Molly looked at her, and scowled. “I know that.’

“Your mind may. Your body says you’re ready for trouble to break out any second now.”

Sometimes it bothered her that John’s wife was perceptive. She saw things Molly wasn’t used to anyone seeing but her. Even Sherlock missed that kind of cue. Mary didn’t…which meant Mary was dangerous. She could see things Molly thought were hidden.

Mary gave a crooked grin, and proved still more perceptive. “Don’t worry, Moll. Your secrets are safe with me.” She looked across the table. Sherlock was leaning on the table, forearms crossed and bracing his body. One hand, half-hidden by his upper arm, held Janine’s. Their fingers were tangled together, and though Janine leaned back in her own seat watching the two brother’s argue with detached amusement, there was still an intimate sense of connection between the two.

Mary glanced at Molly. “How hard is it?”

Molly, who really would have preferred not to be asked, sighed. “I don’t know. You tell me. If he asked me, I’d say no, these days. He’s bad for me. But—I guess it’s like his addiction. Just because I’d say no doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could say yes—and envy her because she can. Because he did ask her.”

Mary nodded. “At least you know,” she said, not stating the rest—that Molly knew Sherlock would be bad for her.

But, damn it, Molly thought, so was a good bottle of whiskey, or a second slice of chocolate cake, or skipping her Pilates class. That didn’t mean she didn’t yearn, and resent those with metabolisms that allowed for some indulgence.

Mary sat up straighter, then, and waved to someone across the room. “Hey, Wizard! Over here!”

Molly followed her gaze. Her eyes widened. “Who…”

Sherlock, too, had turned, and seeing the stranger he swore. “Mycroft, what’s _he_ doing here?”

“I had something I wanted to show him,” Mycroft said, in his snippiest, prissiest voice. “Though I daresay I can’t hope for a sane conversation now that you’re here to bollux it up.” He raised one stately finger in a regal semi-greeting as the newcomer approached. “Ah, good,” he said. “You’re here.”

“Joining the party, Wiz?” Mary asked. She turned to Molly. “This is Wiz. Works with Mycroft’s people. Tech boffin. Smart as a whip. Wiz—meet Molly.”

She looked up at him, feeling a bit stunned.

He wasn’t all that tall—she’d guess no more than average. He was, however, slim, and dark, with tousled, dark brown hair. His eyes, behind imposing glasses, were hazel brown with hints of mossy green. His face was elfin—not as alien as Sherlock’s, but as romantic—and both happier and sweeter.

“Wiz?” she said. “Um…”

“Short for ‘Wizard,” Mary said, even as he said, “It’s just a nickname.”

“I usually refer to him as Q,” Mycroft said, imperiously.

“Like in Star Trek?” Molly asked.

“He’s almost as good at miracles,” Mycroft stated, firmly.

“ _I_  usually call him B, because he’s a total berk,” Sherlock grumbled, only to be firmly swatted by Janine, who growled “Oi, if you can’t be nice, be quiet.”

Molly felt a flutter looking up at him, and fiercely shoved it aside. “What do you want to be called?” she asked.

He grinned—and, my, he had a nice smile!

“Ben,” he said.

She melted. “I always liked that name.”

Mycroft smiled, a tight, contained smirk, and shoved his chair sidewise, making space between himself and Molly.

“Pull up a chair and sit down, Q. We can’t talk properly, but I can at least cover the basics,” he said, and swept the beer Greg had bought into place.

Molly shivered as the man sat beside her.

Mary leaned close, and whispered, “Brilliant. Nice. Single. Works for _Mycroft’s lot_.” She chuckled. “Score?”

Molly gulped, and gave a tiny nod.

Mary rose, then, and yawned. “Me, I’m for bed. Mycroft, if we take the limo now, can you make sure Molly gets home safe when you go?”

“I think that can be arranged,” Mycroft said, meeting Mary’s eyes, that happy, smug, tight little smile never leaving his face. “Greg and I can take her, and if we leave early—Q, if we can’t, can you drive Molly home? She lives in…”

“No prob,” Ben said.

He didn’t look at her—but she could swear his cheeks went a little pink.

He was dressed like a geek, she thought. A hipster geek. And Mycroft said he was a fanboy…

“Are you really like Q,” she whispered.

He flicked a glance her way, eyes bright with laughter, and whispered back, “No—but don’t tell Mycroft. It would be like telling him there’s no Father Christmas.”

She laughed.  “Do you read Terry Pratchett?”

“God, yes. Keeps me sane even around this lot of idjits.  Who’s your favorite character?”

“Death. Yours?”

“Ummm…Depends.”

“Tonight?”

He grinned. “Tonight? Nanny Ogg. Favorite odd-pick?”

 “Ponder. Yours?”

“Magrat.”

She looked at him. He looked at her.

“I’m the shy, quiet one,” she almost whispered.

He leaned close, then, and in a laughing, husky voice, whispered, “Me, too—but, again, don’t tell Mycroft. I’ve got him buffaloed.”

She laughed, then, and said, “I think this may be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

And she was absolutely right.

Mycroft never let either of them forget it.


End file.
